Wednesday, August 15, 2012

A lovely pickled beet...

In the last few years I have come to love pickled beets. They are kind of an acquired taste, but they have totally grown on me and any time I have them it's like a special treat. I've been getting vegetables this summer as part of a CSA and a few weeks ago golden beets were in the box along with an assortment of other veggies. I spent some time looking online for pickled beet recipes. I also called my grandma to see if she had a recipe. I ended up with a combination of Grandma's recipe along with some that I found online. Here's what I did:

Boil beets with the skin on until you can easily poke a fork into them.
(I used Golden beets, but I'm sure this will work for purple beets as well.) Take them out of the water and remove the skins. You should
be able to slide the skins off without trouble after they are boiled.
Slice the beets into bite sized pieces. Now boil equal parts water,
sugar and vinegar (I did 1 cup each) until the sugar is all dissolved.
Then I added spices - I used mustard seed, peppercorn, and a cinnamon
stick. I put all the spices into a piece of cloth and tied the corners
and placed into the boiling liquid for a few minutes. Then I poured the
liquid over the beets in a bowl (I used a glass bowl so the beet juice
wouldn't stain anything) I also put the cloth of spices into the bowl
as well. Then I put it in the refrigerator overnight. The next day I
discarded the cloth of spices.

I've got to be honest, I was pretty proud of my domestic skills and how the beets turned out. These beets tasted lovely!